Yeah, it's pretty apparent that this entire industry is in dire need of some new ideas and leadership. Anyone who walked around DEMA this year came away with the same sentiments. They have been teaching the same stuff for 30 years and selling stuff the same old way. I was excited to see a few companies who seemed to have some fresh ideas, but overall, it was pretty disappointing. The time has come for DEMA to disband and become two seperate business. There should be a organization dedicated to marketing of diving, which would include the certification agencies, travel agencies, and some of the apparel companies. They should concentrate soley on marketing the sales and customer service aspect of the business.
The other organization should be what DEMA used to be. An organization that focuses soley on manufacturing companies and stresses the best ways to market products to dive retailers and military/commercial customers. Think about it. My company makes Scuba Diving Dry Suits. Why on earth do I want to spend $25-50,000 to display at DEMA when half of the booths are travel companies promoting warm water diving! Not a lot of Dry Suits being used in Cozumel. Plus, on a lot of these trips, people are renting and not buying equipment. What the hell kind of sense does it make to have companies promoting travel diving sharing the same floor as companies that rely on selling equipment? It also doesn't help that you have a show that is as big as DEMA that takes quite awhile to walk from one end of the floor to the other. A lot of retailers come to DEMA for seminars and don't spend a ton of time walking the show. Everytime I ran into one of my customer last week, they were always in between classes and burned out from listening to seminars.
I hope more companies take a cue from what we have done over the past 5 years since we stopped displaying at DEMA. Save your money, invest in product development, and keep your prices at a reasonable level so the average human can afford your equipment. If the prices of gear were more reasonable, maybe more people would invest their money in diving. What a noble concept.